As much as prudence demands that we not overweight any one study, particularly one in which hard data is admittedly scarce, I would not rely on anyone from the Heartland Institute as a source of information. It is well-known that they are completely biased, and that they are way out of line with mainstream science. They still question the science surrounding smoking mortality, acid rain, the ozone hole, etc. I read their newspaper once, and remembering thinking to myself that this must be some sort of sick joke...the 2-3 authors primarily quoted themselves as their sources of information.

Here's a few excerpts from their website:
"Over the years, environmental groups have launched campaigns against asbestos, dioxin, lead, mercury, pesticides, PCBs, chlorine, and endocrine disrupters. In every case, later research found the threats had been vastly exaggerated..."

"There are many reasons to be skeptical about what professional anti-smoking advocates say. They personally profit by exaggerating the health threats of smoking and winning passage of higher taxes and bans on smoking in public places. The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas....

...How harmful is smoking to smokers? Public health advocates who claim one out of every three, or even one out of every two, smokers will die from a smoking-related illness are grossly exaggerating the real threat. The actual odds of a smoker dying from smoking before the age of 75 are about 1 in 12. In other words, 11 out of 12 life-long smokers don’t die before the age of 75 from a smoking-related disease....

....Anti-smoking activists give smokers a stark choice: Stop smoking or die! In fact, there is a third path: reduce the harm by shifting to less-hazardous kinds of tobacco products. For example, moving from unfiltered to filtered cigarettes, and from regular to “low tar” cigarettes, both appear to reduce the risk of lung cancer. Switching from cigarettes to chewing tobacco dramatically reduces the health risk."

> From: John Burgeson (ASA member) <hossradbourne@gmail.com>
> Subject: [asa] Antarctica cooling
> To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Date: Friday, January 23, 2009, 8:33 AM
> From the net today:
>
> An article in today's issue of the journal Nature
> argues that, in
> defiance of decades of raw temperature data showing
> Antarctica is
> cooling, the continent is actually warming.
>
> James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at
> The Heartland
> Institute, warns about assigning too much weight to the
> study. You may
> quote from this statement or contact Taylor directly at
> jtaylor@heartland.org or 941/776-5690.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "I would be quite wary of assigning much value to this
> article. Raw
> temperature data and a number of studies over many years
> have
> determined that Antarctica is cooling. Now we have a single
> article,
> reliant on subjective data interpretation from well-known
> global
> warming alarmists, saying the opposite.
>
> "For a long time now, Antarctic cooling has been a
> stone in the shoe
> of global warming alarmists. Now, conveniently, those who
> regularly
> blog on an alarmist Web site claim they have
> 'statistically smoothed'
> the data to show Antarctica is warming, even though surface
> temperature stations show a significant, long-term cooling
> trend.
>
> "The article appears to argue that due to incredibly
> bad luck, many
> temperature stations scattered throughout the continent are
> located in
> random, isolated pockets of cooling that defy the overall
> warming
> trend. The odds of this being the case are quite remote,
> and the
> theory is notably short on reliable evidence. Adding to the
> dubious
> nature of the study's conclusion is the authors'
> self-interest in
> silencing an embarrassing mountain of raw temperature data
> that
> contradict the authors' global warming theory.
>
> "It is funny how global warming alarmists worship at
> the altar of
> alleged 'consensus,' but then totally abandon the
> appeal to consensus
> when it is convenient to do so."
>
>
> --
> Burgy
>
> www.burgy.50megs.com
>
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Received on Fri Jan 23 10:21:20 2009